The Tree Men

4/1/2013

Over the past several months, we have seen an unusual amount of rain accompanied by heavy winds. The combination of these two forces coming together at the same time has the potential to be detrimental to any electrical system with trees falling, breaking poles and causing massive outages.

Fortunately for the Johnson City Power Board and our customers, the Board of Directors and CEO approved for the tree trimming and vegetation control department to be pro-active by implementing various measures to provide a safe and reliable electrical system.

Bill Hunt, Tree Trimming Supervisor, along with coordinators Joe Gouge and Tony Tipton, maintain over 2000 miles of Distribution lines. Brian Gray, Transmission Inspector/Assistant Field Engineer maintains 115 miles of high-line. These employees have used several methods for controlling or eliminating potential tree problems. Over the past 12 months, 21,628 trees have been removed. Other techniques for maintaining clear utility lines are lateral trimming and herbicide vegetation control. We also use a Fecon mower and bush hog for clearing right-of-ways. A helicopter is used for side trimming along high voltage lines. These methods have proven to be very effective and cost efficient. The results speak for themselves with very little and, in some cases, no outages at all during heavy winds.